A wetland bird that walks on floating plants with long toes; its central tail feathers grow long in breeding plumage.
In breeding plumage, its central tail feathers grow long. Long toes spread its weight as it walks over floating vegetation on shallow lakes.
At a breeding site in Tainan, Taiwan, in 2019, females mated sequentially with different males while maintaining pair bonds with several males at the same time. Males incubated the eggs and sheltered chicks under their wings to warm them. Females also sometimes attended the chicks.
It picks insects from the water surface and aquatic plants, grasping roots with its bill to take snails and crustaceans and searching the undersides of floating leaves. It also eats small amounts of lotus and water-lily seeds and other plant material.
Breeding adults have brown upperparts, white wings with black tips and dark brown underparts. The face and throat are white and the neck sides golden yellow. The sexes have similar plumage, but females are larger.
Outside breeding, the tail is shorter and the underparts white; a dark eye stripe extends down the neck sides to form a breast band. Juveniles are similar but have a paler back, no yellow on the neck sides and an indistinct breast band.
An extinction-risk assessment has not been added yet.